Percy Jackson's Myth: Reading The Lightning Thief
by writerofdeath22
Summary: Percy Jackson and his friends get together to read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books. I know people do this, but I swear, this story is not OC. Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. The Newest Greek Myth

**I guess you can say that I'm a new author here and I've decided to write a reading the PJO books. I know there are a lot of these stories out there, but a lot of them are very OC and the authors don't bother to finish them.** **I'm pretty sure that I'll finish the series, but I won't update all the time. I'm very busy with schoolwork and friends/family. I'm not even sure people will read this. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO. If I did, I'd probably be making millions right now. This disclaimer probably goes for the whole book since I'm rubbish at remembering to put these.**

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><p>Prologue: The Newest Greek Myth<p>

It was finally summer for Percy Jackson and his friends. As Percy strolled along the beach, he was wondering if he was going to lead a peaceful life, or be annoyed by a life of monster freaks. He was leaning towards the peaceful life. He could just sit back and relax; watch the sea. In fact, he did just that. Almost immediately, he was interrupted by a voice. When Percy saw who it was, he jumped up in surprise.

"Nico?" he asked.

"Who else would it be," the other boy, Nico di Angelo said, cracking a smile.

"So what are you doing here?" Percy asked. "There isn't any trouble, is there?" he asked with a dark, but equally worried tone.

"I don't know, I just had a feeling I was supposed to be here, like maybe something was going to happen."

"Well I hope not. I kinda like this quiet life."

"When is it ever quiet for a half-blood?"

"When you're dead of course," said a new voice. "You should know all about that, Nico."

"Oh whatever," Nico retorted badly. Percy, on the other hand gave the girl a kiss on the cheek. That's right, it was Annabeth Chase, Percy's girlfriend for nearly three months.

"So what are you doing out here in this November weather, Annabeth. And what's that in your hand,"

"Just so you know, I was looking for you. And this," she said holding up a book with a mischievous smile, " is the reason I came for you." The object, now in clear sight, turned out to be a book.

"A book, Annabeth. Really?" Percy asked. "You know I don't like reading."

"Well I 'm sure you'll be interested in this," said a new voice.

"Thalia?" Annabeth asked with an even huger smile.

"You got it," said Thalia said. The huntress in her silvery clothing smiled and greeted everyone.

"Seriously, where in Hades do you guys pop out of?" Percy asked with a smile.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure Nico's the only one from Hades," said Thalia.

"Not funny guys," Nico growled while the others burst into laughter.

"Well I thought it was funny," said a new voice, overlapping the sound of hooves.

"Grover?" Annabeth asked, as the man walked out of the forest and straight toward them. But this wasn't a man. It was a boy who looked about seventeen but instead of legs and feet, he had furry goat legs and hooves. Along with him, was a girl of seventeen, with frizzy red hair and bright green eyes.

"Don't forget me," said the newest girl.

"Rachel," said Annabeth.

"The Oracle, right?" asked Thalia.

"Yup, that's me. I came here because the Oracle sent me a vision of us reading a book," said Rachel.

"You probably mean this," Annabeth said, holding up the book so Rachel could see.

"So what's this book called anyways?" Percy asked, bored. If we're going to read this, we might as well go ahead and get started with it."

"It's called, _Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief_," Annabeth said with a smile.

"Let me see that," said Percy pushing past his friends. "Whoa. This is insane. Hey I can read it! Why is that?" he said this all very quickly.

"The book's probably been enchanted for demigods to read," Annabeth said matter-of-factly.

"So what are we going to do," Percy asked, already knowing the answer but dreading it.

"What do you think, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said with a scowl. "We're going to read it of course.

"Fine, but can we go somewhere else, I hate the beach. The sand gets stuck in my hooves and fur," Grover complained.

"Sure. In fact, let's go to Thalia's tree," Percy said. "I don't – I mean – we don't want more people than needed," he said very quickly.

"Don't worry Percy; we'll be sure to tell everyone what you're thinking about in your head, during your quests," said Thalia, with a crazy smile.

"Yeah Seaweed Brain. I'd like to see what you thought about me when you met me for the first time," said Annabeth with a smile just like Thalia's. And seeing the looks on everybody else's faces, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

"Oh gods," Percy muttered under his breath. "Let's get this over with," he said as he got up and followed his friend's too Half-Blood Hill.

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><p><strong>So that's the first chapter done and since it is Winter Break you can expect one soon this week.<strong> **Signing off,**

**-SOH **

**Yeah, I got to figure out something better than that for my endings**.


	2. I Vaporize My PreAlgebra Teacher

Chapter 2: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

As they got closer to the hill, more of them started getting nervous. I mean, they're four powerful half-bloods with a satyr and an Oracle at the edge of camp. They're bound to attract all sorts of crazies. But, oh well. So when they got to near the top of the hill, Annabeth stopped.

"I think this is close enough," she said.

"By the way, who do you think sent this?" asked Percy. "And how do you think they know what happens in my mind.

"Probably the Fates," said Annabeth. "I think I read somewhere that they do this with important figures in Greek mythology. How do you think the myths of all the other heroes got out?

"That's reasonable," Percy said.

"I think we should take turns reading," Grover said in a sort of mellow voice. "Since it's in Percy's point of view, I think he should read first."

"I'm game," Percy said, his face a cool façade. Really, he was feeling nervous.

"**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher,"** he read.

"Nice title," Thalia smirked.

"It seems like a title that Percy would pick," Rachel said thoughtfully.

"Probably," Percy shrugged.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"I don't think it's the best idea for you to be giving advice," Thalia said mockingly.

**close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That's not really the best advice," Annabeth said. "I mean, that's not going to stop the monsters from coming after them. It would only hide the truth and make it all the harder to believe."

"It's not like I'm actually writing the book. It's just telling what happened in my head while I was on my adventures," Percy retorted.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"You're really making me want to be a half-blood right now," Rachel said

"There are some good things too," Percy said, subconsciously looking at Annabeth.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. **

"That was kind of patronizing, you know," Nico said.

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages —if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"Why would they put that? It's not like you could warn any of us," Nico said.

"I think they had to put this warning in the book for any half-blood that would read this," Annabeth said rationally. "In case they read this when they're really too young to know the truth."

"Good point. I'd really hate for people to get in trouble because of me," Percy said.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

**I'm twelve years old.**

"I'm pretty sure you're not twelve years old, Percy," Thalia teased.

**Until a **_**few**_** months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in Upstate New York.**

"I don't think you should brag about going to that school," Rachel scoffed.

"Like Clarion Academy is any better," Percy retorted.

"You don't know what it's like there. I could have . . . adjusted," she said uneasily.

"Like that'll ever happen," Percy muttered.

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yep," said everyone around him as he made a face.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"Even you think that too," Thalia smirked.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

"Maybe to you, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth scoffed.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

"That's what you called Chiron at first, right?" Annabeth asked unsure.

"That's him all right," Percy said.

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Percy not falling asleep in class, Chiron's a miracle worker!" Thalia exclaimed, sarcastically.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy, was I wrong.**

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

"What were you aiming for then?" Grover asked.

"I have no idea," Percy said with a blank look on his face. "Probably a monster."

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover **

"I was your best friend back then too?" Grover asked.

"Of course, what did you think you were, my pet goat?"

"No," he said blushing fiercely.

**In the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

At that last sentence, the majority of the people scowled.

"Who would eat a peanut butter and- ketchup sandwich?"

"That does make me nauseous," Thalia agreed.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Gee, if that's what you think about your best friend, then I'd hate to see what you think of the rest of us, Percy," Rachel said.

"You better not say anything bad about me, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth warned and he hoped he didn't.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"You shouldn't blow your cover like that," Thalia said.

"Hey, those enchiladas were delicious you know," Grover said in his defense.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"You would just hit a girl like that?"asked Thalia.

"Er. . . well . . . she was bullying my best friend," Percy added to his defense.

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Is this the Pre-Algebra teacher that you 'accidentally' vaporized?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah," Percy said, admitting defeat. Of course she would figure it out early.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"I wonder what she did to him," Percy asked.

"You don't want to know," Grover mumbled.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"It just had to be that one, didn't it?" Annabeth muttered.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

"Did you really that Chiron would be satisfied with just that?" Annabeth asked.

"**And he **_**did**_** this because . . ."**

"**Well . . ." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

An outbreak of angry mutterings rang out. "God, Percy?"Annabeth shook her head in disappointment. "Seriously?"

"I didn't know all this stuff back then, give me a break," Percy grumbled.

**and—"**

"**God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"How stupid do you have to be to confuse a rock with a god," Thalia said with a scoff.

"Yeah, I don't get that, how exactly do you do that?" Rachel inquired.

"He didn't really bother to chew, he just swallowed them whole . . ." Annabeth said, slightly disgusted.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Thalia said.

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

**Some snickers from the group.**

"Why are they laughing, you got it right," said Thalia with a scowl.

"Dumb mortals," Nico mumbled.

"Hey! I heard that," Rachel exclaimed.

"Keep reading Percy," Nico said, not even fazed.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Well if you want to be a museum curator, or an archaeologist, or an anthropologist . . ." Annabeth said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"That's not a happy note if you asked me," Nico said.

"When is anything ever happy for you, Nico?" Grover said with a smile.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Boys," Thalia muttered.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Ironically, they're older than that," Annabeth said.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived, **_**and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"_Lived_?" Rachel said.

"That's a bit extreme, even for Chiron," Annabeth said with a half-amused, half-concerned look.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good; **_**he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Probably was," said Annabeth simply.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"You can say that again," said Grover.

"I don't need to be a genius, I have Annabeth for that," Percy retorted.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

A chorus of laughter erupted from the group. "Sorry," said a blushing Grover.

"It's okay," Percy shrugged.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

A lot of angry mutterings appeared at this last sentence.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"That's a sight for sore eyes," snorted Thalia.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave?" questioned Annabeth.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

"Way to give away your cover, Seaweed Brain," said Thalia with a smirk, knowing that her calling him that would annoy him.

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

At that moment Grover shivered.

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Like that would be scary," Nico snorted.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"She must be getting excited, she forgot to use human speed," said Nico.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Why is Chiron not doing anything?" Thalia asked to nobody in particular.

"He probably didn't want to make a big fuss in public," said Percy. "And if he needs to save me, he'd rather do it when no one is around."

Everybody stared at him. "Did you just say something smart?" asked Nico in disbelief.

"It's the only thing that seems logical," he said with a shrug.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

"Is this the part where she turns into a big scary monster?" asked Rachel.

"Yeah," Percy said simply.

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Yeah right," Grover muttered.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Seriously, Percy," Annabeth asked.

Since Percy had nothing to defend himself with, he started reading again.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"What ho?" Nico snorted.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"She still calls you that?" Annabeth asked. "That's getting a bit annoying now."

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

"I thought Fur . . . Kindly Ones," Rachel corrected, "were supposed to be hard to kill?"

Percy shrugged at this, for he didn't really know why.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Sure, that has to be it," Thalia said sarcastically.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our **_**teacher.**_ **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

"That was really annoying, you know!" Percy said in a very exasperated tone.

"It got you through the rest of the year, didn't it?" Grover retorted.

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"You're such a terrible liar, goat-boy," Thalia teased.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

The majority chuckled at that, but Percy had a partially pained expression.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"That's the end of the chapter," Percy said. "Who's next?

"I will," Grover said.


End file.
